Partner
City of Onkaparinga
South Australia’s largest metropolitan council, whose Sport Development Team runs OACNET, its club development network, and its annual club leaseholder survey on TidyHQ.
About City of Onkaparinga
The City of Onkaparinga calls itself South Australia’s largest metropolitan council, with more than 182,800 residents across southern Adelaide. Its Grants and Funding Partnerships Framework 2025–30 puts more than $700,000 into community-led projects, events and capacity building. The framework is direct about the council’s role: it is not a philanthropy or a funding agency. It funds individuals, volunteer groups and not-for-profits as partners towards a shared vision for the region.
Club support runs through OACNET, the Onkaparinga Active Community Network — a free club development service for volunteer-managed, not-for-profit sporting clubs. OACNET helps with strategic planning, volunteer recruitment, constitution reviews and legislation; runs free or subsidised training in club operations and governance; sends newsletters; helps with grant applications; holds networking forums; and supports leaseholders with their performance reporting. Its club development resources cover committee induction, succession planning, running meetings and AGMs, budgets, and financial management for SA incorporated associations.
OACNET runs on TidyHQ. The council’s Sport Development Team has its own TidyHQ organisation, where it keeps a register of local clubs and committee members and where clubs sign up for a free OACNET profile. Clubs that lease council facilities complete their annual survey through it. The council’s club leaseholder page says it takes under five minutes and asks for President and Secretary contacts, the number of financial members, player and volunteer numbers, the minutes of the last AGM, and the most recent annual financial statement. Clubs can update their contact details in TidyHQ at any time. The council looks after maintenance on leased buildings, apart from cleaning, and any alterations need landowner consent first.
Grants sit on the council’s grants and funding page. Quick Response: Community grants of up to $2,000 are open year-round until the money runs out. Annual streams such as Connected and Sustainable Communities and Community Events and Festivals pay up to $10,000. The Community Facilities Development Fund, also up to $10,000, is for not-for-profits with a formal partnership with the council, such as a lease, and for community-owned sporting facilities. Under the council’s funding terms and conditions, a grant partner acquits within eight weeks of finishing the activity, with details of all income and expenditure.
The partnership
Onkaparinga is one of the few councils already using TidyHQ for its own side of the club relationship. The Sport Development Team keeps its register of clubs and committees in TidyHQ, and leaseholders answer the annual survey there. Everything that survey asks for — financial member numbers, player and volunteer numbers, last year’s AGM minutes and the annual financial statement — comes from the club’s own records. When the club runs on TidyHQ as well, those answers come from where the registrar, secretary and treasurer already work: the membership list, the meeting minutes and the finance reports. The two accounts stay separate. The council’s OACNET organisation holds the register and the survey answers. The club’s own TidyHQ account holds its members, money and minutes, and the council cannot see inside it. The club decides what goes into the survey.
- The City of Onkaparinga’s Sport Development Team runs OACNET, its club register and its annual leaseholder survey on TidyHQ, and TidyHQ works with the council as a Local Government Partner.
- Clubs that run on TidyHQ have the survey answers to hand: financial member counts from the membership report, AGM minutes from the meetings module, the annual financial statement from finances, and volunteer numbers from a volunteers group in contacts.
- A volunteer with a personal TidyHQ account uses the same login for every organisation on TidyHQ, including OACNET and their own club. The organisations stay separate: access to one gives no access to the other.
Onkaparinga clubs and the paperwork that comes with them
The annual leaseholder survey, done in five minutes
A football club leasing council clubrooms gets the annual survey email from OACNET. The council’s leaseholder page says it takes under five minutes, and it does if the numbers are ready. The secretary reads the financial member count and player numbers off the club’s TidyHQ membership report and the volunteer count from its volunteers group in contacts. Last year’s answers are preloaded, so the job is checking and updating, not starting again.
Two attachments, and no saving halfway
Leaseholders must attach the minutes of their last AGM and their most recent annual financial statement before submitting, and the council’s instructions warn that progress cannot be saved: miss a required field and nothing is kept. A netball club gets both files ready first — the AGM minutes from TidyHQ meetings, the statement the members approved from TidyHQ finances — then fills the survey in one sitting.
A new president after the AGM
The AGM elects a new president and secretary. OACNET asks clubs to keep committee contacts current, and lets them update their club’s contact profile through the council’s TidyHQ organisation at any time. Inside the club’s own TidyHQ account, the new office bearers take over the roles, the recurring tasks and the lease and insurance documents on the same night, without waiting for the old secretary to forward an email.
A $10,000 upgrade to a leased clubroom
A surf club with a council lease applies to the Community Facilities Development Fund for new storage and lighting. Any alteration to a leased council facility needs landowner consent before work starts. Once the job is done, the council wants an acquittal within eight weeks showing all income and expenditure. The treasurer tags every invoice to the grant in TidyHQ finances, and the committee’s decision to go ahead sits in the minutes.
Recruiting volunteers before the season
OACNET’s club development resources point clubs to role descriptions, committee induction packs and succession planning templates. A cricket club writes its canteen, scoring and team manager jobs once, assigns them as TidyHQ tasks to roles, and keeps everyone who helps in a volunteers group. When the annual survey asks how many volunteers the club has, the answer is a count, not a guess.
Common questions
Yes. The City of Onkaparinga’s Sport Development Team runs OACNET, its club development network, on TidyHQ. It keeps a register of local clubs and committee members there, clubs sign up for a free OACNET profile there, and club leaseholders complete their annual survey through it. Clubs can also update their committee contact details in it at any time.
OACNET, the Onkaparinga Active Community Network, is the City of Onkaparinga’s free club development service for volunteer-managed, not-for-profit sporting clubs. It offers help with governance and operations (strategic planning, volunteer recruitment, constitution reviews and legislative guidance), free or subsidised training, newsletters, grant application support, networking forums, and support for leaseholder reporting. Clubs register through OACNET’s TidyHQ page.
City of Onkaparinga club leaseholders complete an annual survey through OACNET on TidyHQ. It asks for updated President and Secretary contact details, the number of financial club members, player numbers, volunteer numbers, the minutes of the club’s last AGM, and its most recent annual financial statement. The council says the survey takes under five minutes, but progress cannot be saved, so have the AGM minutes and financial statement ready before starting.
No. The annual survey sits in the City of Onkaparinga’s OACNET organisation on TidyHQ, and your club logs in with the email registered with the council. Your club can run on any system. Clubs that also run on TidyHQ find the survey quicker, because their member numbers, AGM minutes and financial statement are already in one place.
No. The council’s OACNET organisation and your club’s TidyHQ account are separate organisations, even though both run on TidyHQ. The council sees the register details and survey answers your club gives it. It cannot see your club’s members, finances, emails, events or documents. If a council uses TidyConnect to collect returns from clubs, it sees only what each club explicitly accepts into that project.
The City of Onkaparinga offers community clubs Quick Response: Community grants of up to $2,000, open year-round until the money runs out, and annual grants including Connected and Sustainable Communities, Community Events and Festivals, and the Community Facilities Development Fund, each up to $10,000. The Facilities Development Fund is for not-for-profits with a formal partnership with the council, such as a lease, and for community-owned sporting facilities. The council’s grants advisor can be reached on (08) 8301 7355 or grants@onkaparinga.sa.gov.au.
Under the City of Onkaparinga’s grant funding terms and conditions, a club must submit its grant acquittal within eight weeks of completing the funded activity. The acquittal includes details of all income and expenditure for the activity, and the council can ask for repayment, or rule a group ineligible for future funding, if it is not submitted. TidyHQ helps by tracking grant income and spending in its own finance category from day one.
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